I am a new french Ford model T owner. But found of a Ford T for a long time. I would exchange information with you on the advice of Olivier. I bought a Very rare Ford T 1908 (or 1909???) frame with 2 levers, water pump, press steel cover gearbox and press steel rear axle. It is possible to have information of the first owner, where the car where sold with the engine number? I need parts. It is possible to find parts for these older Ford model T? Thank you for your answers. I will post picture when I will succeed to make pictures under 200ko.

Send as much information as you can on your automobile and I will look it up at the Benson Ford Research Center in Dearborn, Michigan.

Primarily need the engine serial number and body number, if available.

The pressed steel rear axle tubes did not work out very well. We believe many of them had repair welds on the inside for stretch cracks from the factory. There was also a truss rod kit sold to brace the differential and help take the load off the tender steel stamping.

Great - would love to see pictures Is it a car that came to France early or a more recent import? Original parts are understandably scarce and thus expensive, but there has been a lot of early parts reproduced, even whole water pump blocks. Rumours says a lot of the #2 Model T currently in Scotland has a lot of reproduction parts. Reliability of some repro parts on a driven car may vary - see this thread: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/283967.html?1335233772

Thank you very much for your interest! I will try to answer : My engine number is 489. I don't have the body... I bought the parts 1 month ago at the border of France and Switzerland. So I don't know if the car was french or swiss. Maybe you could help me. But Olivier found that a woman drove a Ford T model 1909 in the paper "LE Fordiste" N°34 in May 1925.

Wow, what a treasure The drive mechanism for the high tension magneto is interesting - does it look like it's welded onto the original covers or has someone cast special accessory magneto drive covers for the rare water pump engines? (Kim Dobbins engine, photo by Ralph Ricks)

It looks correct from what I know.Does the frame have the strengthening gussets riveted in the middle of the side rails? Does the carburator have the vertical air inlet on it? The 45 degree later one would not work with the after-market magneto. What drives the magneto? Does it use a special front cover?

I see you're from Mulhouse. Fortunately for you the Schlumpf brothers were mainly interested in Bugattis, so they left this for you to find

Was it a classic barn find or was the chassis rescued and stored by a collector long ago? If the sellers didn't have much knowledge of what they had, then perhaps some more searching in their barn and the surrounding woods would be worthwhile?

Brice, Thanks for the pictures, very interesting car. Is the transmission cover made of Aluminum or is it pressed steel? This is an unknown car, there are no known records of it. Any information from the prior owner would be great! Congratulations on a great find!

Congratulations on your great find! The shipping records for serial number 2 through 1,118 are not available. But Trent Boggess’s “Early Ford Database” shows the following Shipping dates for cars number:

Number 489 was not listed in the tourings, roadsters, towncars or laundalets. The database contains approximately 1 out of every 4 cars shipped back then. Based on that, car 489 most likely shipped around Jan or Feb 1909. [note there are some larger variations – 483 was listed as Feb 20, 1909 and I would like to check another source to make sure it was Feb and not Jan. ] [Trent’s “Early Ford Database” is available on Bruce’s “Model T Comprehensive Encyclopedia” and also “Pate’s Early Ford Automobile Encyclopedia.”]

If you could obtain a higher resolution scan of the newspaper photo we could probably determine if that car was also below #2500 by looking at the fenders and possibly the shift lever(s) and the crank. I tried to zoom in on the photo that was posted but it is a little too low a resolution to be able to see those things clearly.

Herb,

Yes, from the photo it appears to have the fishplate reinforcement. Bob Trevan’s 1909 that has the fishplate reinforcements is shown below #489.

The accounts receivables documents at the Benson Ford list shipping dates for many early Model T's, through model year 1915. I spent several days looking at them in 2008 and noted the following early 1909 Model T shipments.

I only had time to view perhaps 25% of the Accounts Receivables records. These are all the 1909 model year cars that I recorded. Obviously there are many more contained in the records. At some point there needs to be a concerted effort to document all the serial numbers, dealer names, and even original purchasers names found there.

For example there are two original purchasers listed for two lever Model T's. Town car s/n 1463 was sold to "S Wolf" by Merchants Auto Co Successors to Day Purcell Co Cincinnati, OH. It would be interesting to look in the Cincinnati City Directory for 1909 and see just who Mr S Wolf might have been. I would suspect he is a hotelier or taxi company owner.

Similarly on 16-Mar-09 a Touring, serial number 1468 was sold to "J Harris". I wonder if he was a person who might be found in the Cincinnati directory?

It is also interesting to see the top assemblies being ordered separately and on different dates. This should dipel any notion that the top assembly was necessarily supplied by the body maker, or that a cerrtain top is the only top manufacturer or style assembly that is correct for a certain 1909 body style.

The Accounts Receivables ledgers go back to day 1 of the Ford Motor Company. The older the record, the more information is contained. In the case of some cars the original owner's name is often listed, along with detailed lists of items sold with the car such as extra tires, tire chains, carbide tanks, etc.

They also tend to list parts orders in the early years.

To research for an early (pre - Model T) car you would need a day or two, because you would only need to look through a few pages for the larger dealerships. The records are in alphabetic order by name of the dealership, with each dealers records having ledger pages in order by date. The pre - Model T records for a big dealer like Roberts in Toledo Ohio might run 3 - 4 pages. Others like a small hardware store in the middle of rural Idaho might have a single page with a single entry on that page.

As the records progress you will find several pages just for 1913 in a big dealer ledger like Roberts. In my case I was looking for the records for my 1912 touring and my 1913 touring. I only wrote down some of the 1909 information, just because I wanted to and I did not think anyone else had ever published any of it.

Good news -- Trent’s database covering 1903 to Mar 2 1909 is available in hard copy from the Benson Ford archives (you would need to request a copy and I do not know if they photo copy it or if they have it on disk to print out). It is also available on Bruce McCalley’s (RIP) “Model T Comprehensive Encyclopedia” under “Ford the First Six Years” section. It is also available on the DVD that comes with “Pate’s Early Ford Automobile Encyclopedia.” You may easily purchase copies of those. Please see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/322323.html?1353083725 for ordering information for Bruce’s CD. Please see: http://www.earlyfordcars.info/ for ordering information on Carl Pate’s book (which is also available from Lang’s etc.). On Carl’s CD there are several database files. Trent’s information is located in the one titled, “Database – Ford Sales – Car #.PDF”. For anyone with a Canadian two-cylinder Ford or four cylinder NRS based car Carl’s CD also contains a database that John Biggs helped develop that has when which car # was imported to Canada and where it was shipped later. It does NOT include Ts.

That is correct. No one has apparently recorded all the early serial numbers from the Accounts Receivables Ledgers found in Accession 623. So far as I know I am the only one who has a partial listing. All the ones I found are listed above.

The people at the Benson Ford will not perform research for any of us. They will allow you or anyone else to view their documents and perform research in person at the library.

A fee is charged for photocopies or scans of the documents. It is about $35 per page for this service, so having a copy made is out of the question. There are many many kilos of books.

For such a significant car I would travel to the museum and spend as much time as was required - if the car were mine.

In Bruce's data, s/n 489 isn't listed but #488 was sold January 21, 1909 to C.S. Carmon of Clear Lake, South Dakota. The next number listed, #494, was sold to E.A. Cooper of Britton, South Dakota, on the same day. In fact, all listed numbers 488 to 502 were sold that day so it's likely that Brice's car was sold then as well.

As mentioned before, your car's serial number was not listed in Trent's Early Database [which is reproduced in Bruce's data] which most likely means it is not listed in the Accounts Receivable ledgers that they currently have located at the Benson Ford Archives. More than half of the ledgers are still missing. Your serial number is also not listed in the Shipping documents as they are missing serial numbers 2 through 1118. Additionally France as well as Switzerland would have both been supplied from the USA for Fords. The Pre-Ts were shipped through NY NY and I believe the early Ts were also. For example Model T #1 that does have a shipping invoice shows it being shipped out of NY NY. And there are no NY NY addresses listed for any ohter Ts in the accounts receivable ledgers for the first 1114 Ts. Based on that, I believe it is unlikely that you will find much specific information about who your car was shipped to or through or the exact date it was sold etc.

As RV Anderson points out both 488 and 494 were sold Jan 21, 1909 as well as several others that same day. I used a wider suggested range -- of Jan to Feb as your car most likely would have shipped sometime during that range. Note that car # 483 as mentioned above is listed as sold Feb 20, 1909 in Trent's database. I suspect that may be a type-oh and it maybe 1/20/09 rather than 2/20/09 but I would prefer to have it checked by someone to confirm which way it really is. [If someone going to the archives to request to look at that accounts receivable ledger from accession 623 that has the W.D. Nydigger from Elkins WV listed for 2/20/09 they could confirm the date. In this case I believe it was an individual order as I did not see that name listed again for the next few pages before or after that entry. The dealers would have additional orders listed as the individual dealer/agency was kept in the same ledger.]

I believe you might be able to find information about the car from remaining customs records. It would have been a costly import in 1909 and I believe it would have been recorded. The records may have been lost because of WWI or WWII or they may have been destroyed because they were no longer useful after 50 years or so. But if they are available -- they may provide the clue you are looking for. Also some of the historical societies might have a record of the first Ford car to an area etc.

Again, you have a great start on a very early Ford. Congratulations.

For Royce,

You may have forgotten that Trent documented the Model T serial numbers #9 through 1114 that he found in the Accounts Receivable Ledgers and published those in his "Early Ford Database" that was published Sep 10, 1997. I know I often forget some of the details especially when I read about them several years ago. That is the same database that is found in Bruce's CD and Carl Pate's DVD mentioned above. Trent found/documented approximately 234 of the cars between serial #9 and serial #1114 for approximately 21 percent of the cars sold during that time. He also included car #1 but I believe the information for car #1 was obtained from the shipping document and not the Accounts Receivable ledgers.

However, Trent is human like the rest of us and he may have missed one or two serial numbers or more likely one or two Ford Agencies. For example you listed

And Trent's data base does not list any of those numbers and more importantly he does not list Toledo Auto Co. In this case he most likely missed that entry. But since his focus was on the 5000 or so 1903-1908 pre-T entries he made that is understandable. And of course some mistakes are easy to identify – for example serial number 481 is listed as sold 1/20/08. Clearly that could not have happened since they were not producing the T in Jan 1908 -- and it is much more likely that the entry should read 1/20/09.

Note also that Trent's data base has the 21-Jan-09 # 490 listed as Landaulet while you have it listed as a touring. That would be another data point to clarify in the future.

This is a good example that none of us have as much information as all of us put together. The items Trent has already documented combined with what you have documented could help to make the information more accurate. And there is a good chance that others have additional data that could be added.

And to my knowledge you are correct that no one has yet recorded all the information that is available in the account receivable ledgers for the 1909 to 1914/early 1915 cars. Bruce did record some of that information -- a small sample of the 1911-1913 information. And I recently purchased a copy of that listing from Ron Patterson -- approximately 2142 entries from 1911 to 1913 including the engine number, sales date (was that also the shipping date?) and who it was shipped to. That could be a small start to a larger database. We had talked about attempting that several years ago -- but the photo copying cost back then were prohibitive. However, now I believe the Benson Ford Archives will allow folks to take non-flash images for free. That could significantly reduce the cost of producing a more complete data base. That is the method that John Biggs used to capture the Canadian pre-T information a few years ago at the University of Windsor.

I have not scanned and posted the pages from the database as I have not obtained permission to do so. But that is an area we will want to expand on and I look forward to working with you and others to help accomplish that.

When I was at the Benson Ford no images were allowed except those taken by the docents. It would be really easy for me to set up my digital camera as a scanner to copy lots of pages for cheap. Next time I go I will do exactly that.

The touring / Landaulet question would be the difference between an "L" and a "T" in the accounts receivables ledgers. The body style is abbreviated to just a letter, "T" for touring, TR for Torpedo Runabout, TC for Town Car etc. The ledgers are all written in cursive, in a big hurry, and you have to look hard because the difference from a cursive T to an L can be minimal depending on the individual with the pencil in his hand.

The Roberts dealership is contained in an individual volume of its own because it was a very high volume business. It was the largest record that I looked at, and again I only had time to look at 1/4 of the boxes of records during the three days I was there.

Here is a sample. Image property of Benson Ford collection, published here under my license. This is a sample of a page from December 1912 - January 1913. All the cars were 1913 models obviously:

Hap, Royce, Thank you very much (again!!!) for your interest! Olivier told me your forum was very interesting with a lot of pasionnated people. Now I am sure, he was right!

For Hap : In "I believe you might be able to find information about the car from remaining customs records. It would have been a costly import in 1909 and I believe it would have been recorded. The records may have been lost because of WWI or WWII or they may have been destroyed because they were no longer useful after 50 years or so. But if they are available -- they may provide the clue you are looking for. Also some of the historical societies might have a record of the first Ford car to an area etc. "

You mean I have to make researches in Franc our Swiss if there is a record information of importation of Ford T in 1909?

I asked a friend to make researches about this Mlle Canson in Fribourg. Maybe I will find information about Ford Model T ipmortaion in Swiss.

For Brice -- yes, I would recommend you check to see if the Import customs records are available for the Jan - Apr 1909 time frame for both France and Switzerland. Another location that you might check and that others interested in the history of their cars might be the Export Records from NY NY. I do not know if any of those records survive and if they do if they can be reviewed by the average person or not. But I would guess there were not lots of cars being shipped back then.

For Royce – because the Roberts dealership had its on Accounts Receivable volume, there is a chance it was overlooked by Trent and/or that it was not there in 1997 when he was reviewing the ledgers.

Do you know if the dates listed are shipping dates or something else – or should we try to contact Trent to have him let us know his thoughts on that one? Based on the correlation of the dates in the Accounts Receivable Ledgers when the item was paid for or sent to Ford of Canada and the dates that the Ford of Canada customs records show the items arrived, I think for the Ford of Canada items it is the same as the ship and arrive date and possibly the paid for date. But I am guessing on that and I would think Trent, you or someone would know.

I called the Benson Ford Archives just now to confirm that digital cameras WITHOUT a flash could be used. They confirmed they were now allowing that. They shared that not all items could be photographed but many could be. They also have a disclaimer that they reserve the right to refuse to allow certain items to be photographed.

I need to send a few e-mails or letters and receive some from further guidance. Then I will post a new thread on a proposed “way ahead” for working together to capture and organize additional information such as the data in the Accounts Receivable ledgers. For sure working together – like the story of the “stone soup” -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup should help us all. I look forward to what we discover.

For Kim – thank you so much. Some but not all of the numbers you listed are also in Trent’s database but #77, 555, and 910 for example are not listed. Also some of the names of where they went are different. Did your information come from the Accounts Receivable ledgers or a different source? I need to e-mail Trent and request permission to post all of his numbers between #1 and #1114. Again – they are not all listed in his database but approximately 21 percent are listed. Below is a small sample of his listing:

For Tom – I did a quick search of the 1903 to Mar 2, 1909 records in the database. I did not see France or Switzerland listed. I think there is a possibility that the export sales were sent to a shipping company in NY NY that is not listed in the Accounts Receivable ledgers. It is listed in the Shipping Documents – i.e. Model T number 1 was shipped to NY NY and if the story is correct in Stern’s “Tin Lizzie” that the first few Model Ts were shipped to the Olympia Show in England and then from England to the auto show in Paris, France, then NY NY was a shipping node. Hopefully you can discover more during next few trips.

Favor to ask … would you please consider taking a digital camera and request permission to take some photos of some of the shipping ledger pages? The Benson Ford Archives will now allow NON-flash digital photos to be taken of many but not all of the documents. There should not be a charge for taking the photos. I’m ready to slowly start tackling building a better database of the serial numbers, dates, and where they were sent for the Nov 1911 to Dec 1912 cars. Specifically several serial numbers that were shipped to Ford of Canada would be helpful as the cars have survived and we could correlate the dates in the ledgers to help date the cars. Those would be serial numbers 107452 ; #109657 and 120062 which are all located in Australia. Two of those we have a Beaudett body number. Because they are Canadian cars and we know that the Canadian Accounts Receivable ledger survived, there is an excellent chance those numbers are listed. If the archives will allow you to take the photos, I will gladly sort through the pictures to see if the numbers are listed or not. If my estimates are correct (they may or may not be) I would anticipate they would be listed sometime during Mar 1912 to and including Jul 1912. I do not know how many pages that would be for Ford of Canada. It may turn out to be many more than is reasonable to ask you or anyone else to photograph. In which case please just “give it your best shot” and photograph some pages so we can work with them to see what we can do. I anticipate we will need to hand type all the entries – unless someone knows of a way to have OCR work on the handwriting. Maybe the Dragon Speech recognition software commercials would be helpful for a project like this?

This is a sort of a “test the waters” request. I plan to send the Benson Ford Archives a request to allow us to photograph all the accounts receivable ledgers. I would plan to skip th1909-1911 ones that are duplicates of the actual shipping documents and start with the Nov 1911 to Dec 1912 ones where the serial numbers are not as well documented. Also Trent has already done the 1903 to Mar 2, 1909 although some of that information should be double checked.

If others have suggestions on this “trial sample experiment” please let us know. And if you do not have time to take some photos of the pages – that is ok also. The information is over 100 years old so far, so waiting a little longer to get it digitized will probably not hurt.

I wanted a list of Ford sold by Henry Depasse, but I did not find anything. The Ford factrory assembly in "Bordeaux", created by Henri Depasse, kept no record of that time, and I still have not managed to find the family of Henri Depasse whether it have documents from this period.

Thomas, if you go to Benson Ford, could you see if there are documents concerning Henri Depasse. Well when you look at the books, you can look for my 1912 Ford No. 120,812, which was sold by Henry Depasse. If you do not mind too much.

It is my understanding that Trent did not have the Accounts Receivables ledgers - or perhaps only a few of them - when that list was made. Bruce told me that he (Bruce) had never looked at them prior to publishing his books.

Hi Hap, I don't know the origin of that list of California cars. I emailed Trent a few days ago about this thread, but never heard back from him. I have a copy of the data base, but you probably have it also. Thanks for posting the info.

For Kim – thank you for clarifying that you do not know the origin of the California list. It may be very accurate or it may have some errors. Hopefully someone will recognize it or part of it and let us know more about the source and/or reliability of the listing. Some sources such as Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) would probably be more reliable than say a person’s memory (or I know my memory has never been that great). Also thank you for dropping Trent an e-mail about this thread. I know it is a topic he enjoys also. This morning I sent him a request for permission to post the entries from #4 to #1114 of his database. With the holidays – he may be traveling or preparing to travel etc. as I have not heard from him yet either. Or he may be tied up with his work as a professor.

For Royce – I’m sure you are correct that Bruce had not seen the Accounts Receivable Ledgers or Trent’s database prior to publishing his book “Model T Ford” which was copyrighted 1994. I do not think they had been located that early. Trent published his “Early Ford Database in Sep 10 1997 (ref title page). In the introduction below he comments that the Accounts Receivable Ledgers had been recently discovered.

and skipping to the last two paragraphs of the introduction:

Note that Trent answered my question about what the date that was listed in the database was. He clearly says it is the date the vehicle, chassis, or engine was shipped.

I look forward to working with more and more of you to help discover more about the Accounts Receivable Ledger puzzle pieces and how they likely fit together.

One error in the article by Trent is obvious. The Accounts Receivables extend through January 1915 in some volumes. Perhaps Trent only looked at the last page in some of the books, or he did not look in all of the books, or all were not available at the time of his research. In any case there is more work to be done to document the rest of the information.

You should go there some time Hap. I would be glad to meet you there and help document the "rest of the story"

I would enjoy meeting you at the Archives and we could have a great time sorting through the wealth of information. But due to time and resource constraints it will probably be a while before I am able to visit there again. But I believe we are going to be able to figure out a “win-win” process that will allow us to accomplish the goal of better documenting the Accounts Receivable Ledgers without all of us individually having to visit the Benson Ford Archives. I believe we could divide up the work so none of us get burned out and all of us and those in the future will be able to use the information that is gathered. I’m working slowly behind the scenes to help move that idea forward. There maybe others working towards the same end and if so – please let me know (posting or e-mail – just click on my name and my e-mail address is the third line down) and we can work together etc.

And I know that there will always be additional information that will be discovered to help make the information more accurate etc. As I have said before, “None of us knows as much as all of us know together.”

I’m certain Trent will welcome any corrections or additions to what he has already compiled. Since his focus in 1997 was on the Mar 1909 and earlier records, he may not have looked very much at the later information. And I don’t think he had anyone helping him in that effort. I know I can easily miss things when I have been working with a document for a while. I will see what I know it should be rather than how it is actually typed.

My friend gave me some clues : He confirmed that there did not have an official Ford import in Swiss.

He knows that the actual Ford import in Switzerland destroyed the archives. And it is the same for the official office of car's approval in Switzerland.

For your information, it is more complicated that you can imagine. If you have a vintage car in Switzerland you have to prove to the official office car's approval that your car was imported in Switzerland to approve it. If you don't succeed you have to pay taxes!

Thank you so much for the update that the information came from you and you obtained it from the California DMV records. If you think that procedure could be done in some of the other states, please let us know.

Stefan Schaller, a Swiss, used to be on the Intl Forum years ago, and I think my contact info for him is current, which I can give you by private message. He has a TT and a Touring, and once upon a time was having trouble licensing or insuring the cars without 4-wheel brakes. He might be able to help.

Hello everybody! I started to take appart the parts. It is strange: the engine seems to be new although the gear box seems to be very used. The ignition system is a modification : the magneto is younger than 1909, the T409 part was cut. But I don't have the normal magneto between the engine and the gearbox. Do you know why? To Herb Iffrig and Roger Karlsson : Ignition : The original T 409 part was cut and a special carter in bronze was mounted to protect the magneto gear who drives it. The carburetor has a vertical air inlet. For the rivets, I don’t exactly understand what you want to know?

A little off topic,but are records showing cars that were shipped or sold and the Co. name from 1917 to 1927. available there at Benson? I'm researching the three Co. that produced the Automobile Snow attachments and I believe that they purchased cars direct from Ford Motor Co. and modified them for resale as new cars. The Snowmobile brand was connected to Mr. Whites Ford dealership, and as he was selling them only through other Ford dealers. Sorry for being OT but your information on the Benson Research Center sounds like it mite provide me with Information also. Thanks look forward to your answers. I enjoy all of the research information on the forum, Keep it up.

I am not an expert, but my understanding was that the frame and running gear were painted the same color as the body. Also that the wheels, fenders, and splash aprons were painted the body color. Try to save a little of the red you found to match the color.

Perhaps someone with more experience that me can recommend a modern paint that is close to the original color.

Good luck with your project.

You may want to buy the book "Model T Ford, The Car That Changed The World" by Bruce McCalley. A new printing just came out and it is available on this web site. It has some good information on the early cars.

Brice, Thanks for the pictures. looks like you still have the original non adjustable clutch fingers. The magnets and field coil have been removed. Also looks like someone cut the block and front cover to add a magneto. Most of the car was red, with the exception of the engine. Keep the pictures coming!

There are plans available for the standard 1909-1910 Touring bodies, however the early 1909 bodies were different. I don't know whether the differences were major but there were cosmetic differences at least. For one thing there was an extra bead behind the rear door on the early 1909s. Kim can you elaborate?

Royce : when you say "seems remote to me" you think it will be difficult to make it correctly? I know that. I have to think of all the choice I have. I will try to find this car and see the body. http://www.ford-t.fr/articles.php?lng=fr&pg=752

But I think it is a aluminium body not a wood body...

I am thinking : I will have all the parts in my hands. Do you think it is interesting to make drawings of special parts?

Royce Thanks for the Info. I find the same,all or most all of these Co.records and files have been destroyed or lost to fires at there plants. The Arps Corp. is still in business under a different name. They over the years have thrown out all of the orig. drawings, except for a few that a relative of Mr.Arps was able to salvage from the dumpster. They would not give them to him even though he had worked for them for 40 years and was a nephew of Mr.Arps. I was able to visit with him a couple years ago and I was able to copy all that he had on the subject. No interest in history only making money I guess.

Kim can you comment on this - was this feature on other 2 lever cars? Another minor difference is the location of the rear door handle. Early 1909 the handle was about a third of the way up the upper door panel (as on #903 above). Later 1909 and 1910 had it about half way up the panel.

Any of the wooden or early aluminum 1909 - 10 bodies have the molding around the rear body. Indeed the door handle position moved about the middle of 1909 on the door. 1909: S/N 904: Later 1909: 1910 for comparison:

I can comment on how the water pump works on #904. It works, but it leaks a bit because the leather seal design is not too good. You need to check the radiator level every day and top it off, because it will be low.

Ford improved the Model T's reliability tremendously when he removed the water pump. The Model T would never have been much of a success had Ford not redesigned the entire engine at serial number 2500.

The original Model T pre - S/N 2500 water pump cars do not easily overheat, at least 904 doesn't. I've driven it on days when the temperature is well over 100 and it shows no such tendancies so long as it still has enough coolant in the radiator. I don't see how it could possibly cavitate, the water level is above the top of the pump.

You have to pull back hard on the reverse lever with one hand to maintain reverse, pull the throttle lever down with the other to keep from stalling, and try to steer backwards with your third third hand on the steering wheel.

Royce, I was informed by a person with more early waterpump T experience than you have. His was my only data, hence the question to Dan.

It appears you don't understand cavitation. If the pump's output tries to exceed the capability of the inflow, you get cavitation, in which flow nearly stops, and erosion sets in. Water level in a radiator is not the same as max flow through it.

Perhaps such corrosion could lead to pump failure, this happens today with pumps, think many times its related to materials used, design of the pump, and velocity of the pumped fluids plus the reaction to material and fluids.

Extreme pump wear on modern vehicle.

The Ford water pump was made of steel, and probably ran less rpms as modern, and certainly could have worn out that way.

Rather doubt that cavitation wear doomed the T pump. Probably leaks did it in, or other reasons, that Henry found the pump unnecessary for the performance of the Model T over the long haul.

The Ford T early water pump parts. The propeller of the pump seems to be of a design for low pressure volume movement, unlike our high pressure volume pumps on today's cars.

Wish I did take a picture of a Berg's water pump I removed from a T engine years ago.

Don't know how long it had run on the motor, but really was surprised to see the amount of damage to the pump housing, right at the inlet port, huge portions of cast alum gone.

Really looked like it just melted away, which it did!

Now was that cavitation erosion, yes, to me it was, and the cast alum the pump was made with maybe not the better material, maybe other grades of alum would hold up.

Anyway, if you have an alum housing pump on your T, I would check it from time to time and see if its 'melting'....like the witch from OZ .

Andrew, Yes the body on 314 has an extra bead that the production 1909-10 body did not. Quite a few of the early 1909 cars out there have new bodies on them and may not have been copied off an original early 09 body. Even #220 has a later 09 back seat portion, so its easy to get misleading information.

Re, the car in North Carolina----It would help his cooling if he put the FAN the correct way around . To do this he will need to remove water pump shaft and put the fan on the shaft first [correct way around] and then re assemble water pump.